Having been married to my beautiful loving wife PattyAnn for almost 50 years,-- 49 years, 9 months and 1 day, and some hours to be exact,-- Father Ray thought I would be the best one to preach at this celebration. Marriages are parodied, praised, cursed, blessed and form the plots of movies and TV sitcoms. Many poets and writers  have written countless pages about marriage. Here ‘s a little sampling of what they have said:

Samuel Butler(1612-1680) “For in what stupid age or nation/Was marriage ever out of fashion” (Hudibrus)—I guess he never lived in modern day Quebec!

Robert Louis Stevenson(1850-1894) of Treasure Island fame had a more jaundiced view: “Marriage is like life in this—that is a field of battle, and not a bed of roses.” (Virginibus Puerisque)

How about this from the famous poet, Byron (1788-1824)

“Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine—a sad, sour, sobering beverage—by time/Is sharpen’d from its high celestial flavour/Down to a very homely household savour.”

The famous Samuel Johnson, man of letters in the 18^th century had a better estimation: “ Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures” or “The triumph of hope over experience” –said of a man who had just re-married!

A Rev Sydney Smith (1771-1845)  said: “Marriage…resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them”.

I’m sure you have all read or seen many more witticisms about marriage.

In a more serious vain, marriage seems to have fallen out of favour in our culture.  In fact, the very definition of marriage has been changed by so-called progressive thinkers.  Marriage has become an arrangement between any two people regardless of their sexual gender. Margaret Somerville sees this as the ‘progressive values revolution” which began in the 60’s. There are several characteristics of this revolution that she points out. The first is “the view that change is always beneficial and necessary” and a “belief that the sought-after change will do only good..espousing a primary ideology of individual choice and tolerance.” Another characteristic is a loss of the sense of the sacred and with it a sense of any mystery in life. This has been replaced by a utilitarian philosophy (the end justifies the means) and moral relativism (nothing is inherently wrong or right, it all depends on circumstances or personal preferences). There is also a rejection of nature as having any moral status “The natural differences between men and women (sex difference), male and female(gender difference) are rejected and replaced by a doctrine of ‘gender neutrality’”. The advances of reproductive technologies have broken the natural bonds between a child and a mother and a father and destroyed the sense of one’s ancestry.  Theoretically, a child born today could have three mothers (the egg donor, the surrogate mother and the adoptive mother) and two fathers (sperm donor and adoptive father).  “The definitions of a parent and a family then become whatever group we define as such, it has no natural intrinsic biological reality.” Another aspect of this progressive thinking is the change from sex as procreative to sex as recreative. If a mistake is made and a child conceived, then there is abortion. This sense of our sexuality as recreational is enhanced through the internet (pornography at your finger tip, sexting between young people and so on). Today marriage or cohabitating is based on romantic love and when that fails, divorce or separation is easily available. How far in disrepute marriage has fallen can be seen in a recent Nanos Research poll quoted by Margaret Somerville: 56% of Canadians disagreed when asked, ‘marriage is an outdated institution’; however, when broken down by age,  only 30% of 18-29 year olds  disagreed .  Again I quote Margaret S., “The role of educational establishments in creating the conditions which favoured legalizing same-sex marriage should not be underestimated. Many young people have never been exposed to more traditional values regarding sexual conduct and marriage; ..and in universities political correctness is being used to silence any disagreement with progressive values, including about sexual conduct. As well, almost all young professors, and a substantial proportion of older ones promote progressive values.”

I draw this portrait of marriage in our culture today, to stress the importance of witnessing to the true nature of marriage as a commitment between a man and a woman and a sign of God’s kingdom present in our world. Having collectively lived hundreds of years of Christian marriage, your witness “keeps alive the flame of faith” lit at our baptism.

I say ‘Christian’ marriage because the marriages celebrated here this afternoon are sacramental.  The addition of that word, ‘sacramental’ shifts the relationship of a man and woman in marriage onto a wholly different plane. A sacrament opens up a conduit between the here and now, the nitty-gritty of existence with the eternal now of a loving God. A sacrament uses words and signs to symbolize a deeper reality, to point to something, profound and hidden. A sacrament directs our whole being towards God. The signs and symbols themselves bring to reality what they promise, what they signify. The “I do” each of us said to our spouses 5, 10 or 40, 50 years ago says that God’s love for all will remain always. Our covenantal relationship in which we promised to be forever faithful to one another is a sign of God’s faithfulness, a sign of Christ’s union with his Church, the people of God.

Pope Francis’ recent Postsynodal Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia the Joy of love   is worth reading. He writes, “The couple that loves and begets life is a true, living icon ..capable of revealing God the Creator and Saviour”(#11) Your presence here today speaks volumes to this truth . The covenant of marriage freely undertaken by two mature adults is a beacon to all.  Marriage is a promise to be someone else’s intimate and true friend; it is a promise to recognize that life is a gift from God and so, Christian marriage is always open to new life. It is never turned in on itself but always turned outwards to witness to God’s faithful love and care for all He has created.

So far I have said little of what is one of the most important aspects of a true marriage and that aspect is found in today’s Gospel. As our marital relationship unfolds in time, there are bound to be failures.  The worst failure of all, however, is not recognizing the wrong and failing to ask for, or to give, forgiveness.  As Pope Francis syas , the three most important words in a marriage are: “Please, thank you and I’m sorry. Sometimes this does not require words but only a loving embrace. Jesus does not embarrass the woman who crashed the dinner party by forcing her to admit publicly all her sins and wrongdoings.  He accepted her gestures, her weeping, her desire to kiss and anoint his feet as her desire to be forgiven. “You gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears… You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet….You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven.”(Luke 7:44-47). True marriage is the union of two  good forgivers.  

Pope Francis also points out that we as Church have a responsibility to recognize our failures. “We also need to be humble and realistic, acknowledging that at times  the way we present our Christian beliefs and treat other people has helped to contribute to today’s problematic situation. ..We need a healthy dose of self-criticism…we often present marriage in such a way that its unitive meaning, its call to grow in love and its ideal of mutual assistance are overshadowed by an almost exclusive insistence on the duty of procreation.” (#36)

One of my favourite authors reminds us of the difference between ‘being or falling in love’ that we all experienced when we first met our spouses and ‘the mature love of a covenanted relationship which develops over many years of laughter and tears, joy and sorrow, painful wounds and healing.. Seeing it through to the end, we might say.’ Here’s what CS Lewis said:

What we call ‘being in love’ is a glorious state, and , in several ways good for us.  It helps to make us generous and courageous, it opens our eyes not only to the beauty of the beloved but to all beauty…whatever people say , the state called ‘being in love’ usually does not last.  But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love.  Love in this second sense is not merely a feeling.  It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. … It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run; being in love was the explosion that started it. (Mere Chrisitianity,p96-97).

Marital love is not changed by the ravages of time.  That’s why all married men know instinctively how to answer their wife’s question, ‘How do I look dear?’  Shakespeare  puts it so beautifully in his Sonnet:

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks/Within his bending sickle’s compass come;/Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,/But bears it out even to the edge of doom./If this be error, and upon me prov’d,/I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d. Shakespeare, Sonnet129)

In our Eucharist this afternoon, let us celebrate our love for our spouses.  Let us constantly remind ourselves that this love is only possible through the sacramental bond of Christian marriage.  Let our prayer be that of Tobit and Sarah on their wedding night:

You are blessed, O God of our fathers; blessed too is your name for ever and ever.  Let the heavens bless you for evermore, and all things you have made. …Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us: and let us both grow old together in health. (Tobit 8:5, 7a).